The Designer: Gordon Andrews

The Bank’s decision to accept Gordon
Andrews’ vibrant designs for Australia’s
new decimal banknotes was bold, and as it
turned out, beautiful.

Australia’s currency was firmly in the
spotlight from April 1963 (when Treasurer
Harold Holt announced that the country
would convert to a decimal system) through
to September 1963 (when he revealed that
the main unit of the new currency would be
the Dollar). But although the final solution
proved widely popular, arriving at it was
something of a bumpy ride.

Following Treasurer Holt’s
initial announcement, a
competition was organised
seeking suggestions to
name the new currency. By
the time it closed, around
1,000 names – many with
a strong Australian flavour
– had been proposed,
including the Austral, the
Oz, the Boomer, the Roo, the
Kanga, the Emu, the Digger,
the Kwid and even the Ming
(which was the nickname of
Prime Minster Menzies!).

None of these met with the
government’s favour, and
on 5 June 1963 the Treasurer
announced that the new
decimal currency would
be called the Royal. The
decision had been made,
he declared, because none
of the names with typically
Australian associations
would be fully acceptable
to the public. Furthermore,
none of the suggested
names had ‘dignity, ease
of pronunciation, brevity
and suitability’. Opposition
to the Royal was, however,
immediate and so
widespread that just three
months later the Treasurer
announced that the new
currency would be called
the Dollar. In a subsequent
statement Mr Holt said
that with this decision, the
government believed it
was giving effect to the
preference clearly shown
by a substantial majority
of Australians.

The Treasurer announced that
the new decimal currency
would be called the Royal ...
opposition was so widespread
that just three months later it
was changed to the Dollar.

With the name settled, the Reserve Bank
began thinking about what the new banknotes
would look like. Seven designers were
approached and asked to produce samples.
Four of the seven took up the challenge
and, over the next six months, they each
devised eight sides of four banknotes. Their
brief included a set of detailed instructions,
including that the colour and design of their
banknotes should be inherently Australian; and
that they should capture in their artwork the
country’s history, as well as its contribution
to the wider world.

I am indebted to the
Bank for its unswerving
understanding and lack of
interference with the
designs in progress…

In April 1959, the
Advisory Committee selected the work of
designer Gordon Andrews to appear on
Australia’s currency banknotes. Their decision,
documented in a memo, found that
the four sets of banknotes were all of a high
standard, but that the set
by Gordon Andrews was of
outstanding excellence.

The memo notes that,
‘… the designs submitted
by Gordon Andrews are
outstanding, they are
fresh and forward looking;
they are Australian in
feeling, yet subtly so; they
represent a completely
new conception in
currency note design,
and yet – and this is most
important – they would be
universally acceptable to
and comprehensible by the
average person’.

Selecting the vibrant
designs proposed
by Gordon Andrews was
just one of a number of
progressive initiatives
taken by the Bank in the
early 1960s. Although
parochialism was rife in
Australia at that time,
under the watchful eye
of Governor Coombs
the Bank proudly opted
for innovative solutions,
reflecting the Bank’s (and
Dr Coombs’) interest in
evolving, international
trends.

Breaking with tradition

In designing the new series, Gordon
Andrews wanted to avoid the empty
clichés of an Australiana catalogue.
Rather, he set out to use both interesting
and familiar Australian subjects and, in
the process, he gave more prominent
recognition to aboriginal culture,
women, Australia’s unique environment,
architecture and the arts, as well as
Australia’s contribution to aeronautics.
Writing in Currency (in February 1966)
he noted that, ‘… it would have been
suicide to have left the sheep out – so
wool and wheat paired nicely. The Ten
represents Greenway and Lawson –
roughly suggesting the Arts, and the
Twenty, Kingsford Smith and Lawrence
Hargrave – flight, inventions and adventure
so important in Australia’s history’.

From the beginning Gordon Andrews
sought to break away from tradition
with his elegant designs by having the
patterns on his notes in reverse, with fine
white lines of the paper reading between
solid lines of ink. In his words, ‘this made
it possible to get some strength and
character into the colour. Almost everyone,
apart from the design consultants, was
dead scared of this idea or sceptical about
the outcome’.

Achieving the desired effect
proved difficult, but not
impossible. Disaster nearly
struck much later in the
process though. ‘Nobody
here knew precisely how
much ink the (simultan)
machine should deliver to
the paper for a perfect print.
The first run produced
a bitterly disappointing,
washed out colour’,
Andrews wrote in Currency.
‘The strong colours I had
fought so hard to preserve
during the designing of the
backgrounds were insipid.
The ink maker said, “run
more ink” and the printer
said, “the ink film is now
maximum”; we struggled
to strengthen the denser
pigment. The colour simply
became ‘‘dirty’’. Finally after
exhausting and persistent
experimentation the right
film of ink was established
and the colour brought up
to the strength desired’.

By the end of this laborious
and sometimes daunting
process, Andrews was
clearly well-pleased. He
wrote in Currency: ‘ I am
indebted to the Bank for its
unswerving understanding
and lack of interference
with the designs in
progress, to the consulting
panel for their frequent
constructive criticism, to
the engravers who strove
with extraordinary patience
and skill to translate the
black and white drawings
into engraved steel plates
without distortion of my
intention, and to the many
craftsmen who converted
my designs into banknotes’.

Decades later Gordon
Andrews’ designs are still
well known and loved.
As his friend Alan James
noted in 2001, shortly
after Andrews’ death, ‘I
know of no other currency
that captures the rugged
vibrancy and spirit of a place
the way ours does. To his
continuing credit, the new
polymer banknotes reflect the
spirit of the work he did’.

Gordo (was) a cultural
hero who merits a place
alongside those depicted
in the six Australian
decimal banknotes he
designed.

Gordon Andrews: A cultural hero

From the moment of their release, Gordon
Andrews’ designs on Australia’s decimal
currency banknotes became part and parcel of
our national identity. And, although they
were certainly one of his most famous
creations, he was well-known around the
world for much more. Not only was he one
of Australia’s foremost industrial designers,
but he also worked in Britain and Italy,
and was the first Australian designer to
be elected as a Fellow of the UK Society
of Industrial Artists and Designers. The
Powerhouse Museum acquired the Gordon
Andrews archive in 1989, and held a
retrospective exhibition ‘Gordon Andrews:
a designer’s life’ in 1993. Luckily the archive
was acquired before the designer’s home
at Lovett Bay (near Church Point) was
destroyed by bushfires in 1994.

Following his death in January 2001,
members of the Australian Graphic
Design Association shared their thoughts
about this extraordinary man in a series
of tributes. Alan James, who was also a
member of the Association, noted ‘He
created highly original, beautiful objects at
a time when stuff wasn't that sexy or well
considered. He helped to put design on the
agenda in Australia, and to put Australian
design on the world map…Thanks to him,
Australia ceased to be represented at world
trade fairs by a pyramid of IXL jam tins and
a huddle of moth-eaten, stuffed koalas’.

James also made some
surprising references to the
banknotes, like this one
‘… he managed to get
his initials on just about
everything he did. Even
the banknotes – every one
of them. I told him of the
time when, as a little kid,
a mate and I focused our
magnifying glasses on a
note… my older, more
knowledgeable friend
was pointing out the
complex anti-counterfeiting
measures designed into
the banknotes: the metallic
strip, the watermark, the
complex interwoven
wave bands of colour. And
look there – just behind
Lawson’s neck – two tiny
letters: GA.

Perhaps the final word
should be left to Rita Siow
who was the Association’s
General Manager at
the time of Gordon
Andrews’ death. ‘Labelled
a dunderhead at school,
“Gordo” as he was often
affectionately known, went
on to become an icon in the
design world – a graphic
and industrial design
pioneer, and a cultural
hero who merits a place
alongside those depicted
in the six Australian decimal
banknotes he designed
between 1966 and 1973’.

Endnotes

This section is drawn from an article in the Reserve Bank's staff journal, ‘Designs
of Note’, Currency, April 2009, pp 6–11.
[1]

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